Ukraine’s Top Models on What They Wore Before the Runway

At first blush, the street style crowd at Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days may not seem all that different from its counterparts in New York or London. But the truth is that most of Ukraine’s top models have taken a complicated sartorial path to their current on-trend looks.

Most were born at the end of the Soviet era—when a pair of black-market Levi’s was a precious commodity—but grew up in the early ’90s, the wild and lawless early years of Ukrainian democracy, when the markets were saturated with knockoffs and bootleg fashion.

With little knowledge of how the Western world actually dressed, many young Ukrainian models were plucked out of obscurity by scouts and thrust onto international runways, entering a whole new world of luxury labels and avant-garde designers whose work looked to them more like art than clothing.

For some, it took years to learn how to craft an off-duty aesthetic out of this confusion. “I used to always be very overdressed,” says Alina Baikova, a couture darling whose athleisure street style is now captured on the newswires. “Before I moved to New York, I wouldn’t ever wear sneakers.”

Alla Kostromichova—one of Ukraine’s best-known faces, who recently had a stellar post-baby comeback on the Balmain Spring 2017 runway—remembers her style as being pared back by necessity. “We could not afford many things, so I used to knit and make clothes,” says Kostromichova, who treasured the hand-me-downs she’d get from her cousins. You can probably imagine how mystified Kostromichova’s parents were by some of the more popular fashion trends. “My mom was completely against ripped jeans,” she says. “You cannot imagine how cool I felt when I finally got them.”

As for model-turned-stylist Nadiia Shapoval, she remembers being a bit clueless about fashion before her days on the runway. “I did not know anything about style. But I was sure that I was stylish!” she says. “I feel like it [learning about style] is a process, and it is very connected to self-confidence and freedom.” Years later, Shapoval now counts concept stores like Asthik as her go-to, but she still considers Kiev’s secondhand market Lesnoy—her teenage haunt—as a favorite shopping destination. Turns out for Ukrainian models, homegrown pride is one thing that never goes out of style.